Connecticut Local Politics

From the decision:

Even though the right to marry is not enumerated in our constitution, it long has been deemed a basic civil right. …Although we traditionally have viewed that right as limited to a union between a man and a woman, ‘‘if we have learned anything from the significant evolution in the prevailing societal views and official policies toward members of minority races and toward women over the past half-century, it is that even the most familiar and generally accepted of social practices and traditions often mask unfairness and inequality that frequently is not recognized or appreciated by those not directly harmed by those practices or traditions. It is instructive to recall in this regard that the traditional, well-established legal rules and practices of our not-so-distant past (1) barred interracial marriage, (2) upheld the routine exclusion of women from many occupations and official duties, and (3) considered the relegation of racial minorities to separate and assertedly equivalent public facilities and institutions as constitutionally equal treatment.’’

Like these once prevalent views, our conventional understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection. Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice. To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others.

The guarantee of equal protection under the law, and our obligation to uphold that command, forbids us from doing so. In accordance with these state constitutional requirements, same sex couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry.

The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded with direction to grant the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and application for injunctive relief.

From one of the dissents:

The majority further concludes that our statute confining marriage to opposite sex couples violates the rights of same sex couples under those constitutional provisions because the statute does not survive the heightened scrutiny required by that constitutional classification.

There’s a lot of really interesting stuff in the decision, and I leave you to pour over it.

Personally? I’m very pleased. This was the right decision. I do wish the legislature had beaten the court to the punch, but I do understand why that didn’t happen.

For those who think this is judicial activism, think of the requirements of equality that the constitution sets out. It is the duty of the court to see that those requirements are met, and in this case (read the decision) that’s exactly what was done.